Entfremdung is best translated as making strange, evoking the juridical foreigner
Evidence
We suggest that Entfremdung should be translated as ‘making strange’, extrané- isation in French, referring back to the legal term in France that designates the juridical status of the foreigner. Because of its ambiguity (it is a distinctively Freudian notion) and the archaic word to which it refers (Old French ‘estrangier’), we cannot retain the translation étrangeté, ‘strangeness’, suggested by Jean-Pierre Lefebvre. — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel, 1374
Categorization
Category: Definitional Content
- DEFINE: Malabou’s explicit translational choice for Entfremdung, grounding ‘estrangement’ in the legal status of the foreigner rather than mere strangeness.
- XREF: This translator’s decision about foreignness resonates with the reader’s MOC thread on enemy/friend construction — the alien defined by juridical status rather than strangeness echoes the enemy’s procedural construction.